EX^LlBRISUNlVEKITfOFCALIFORNIA-'i 


t'fii 


JOHN  HENRY  NASH  LIBRARY 

^  SAN  FRANCISCO  <a> 

PRESENTED  TO  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

ROBERT  GORDON  SPRQUL,  PRESIDENT. 

Mr.andMrs.MILTON  S.RAV 
CECILY,  VIRGINIA  AND  ROSALYN  RAY 

AND  THE 

RAY  OIL  BURNEROOMPANY 

SAN  FRANCISCO 
NEW  YORK 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/boersuitlandersOOhammrich 


The    Boers 

AND     THE     UlTLANDERS 

h 
Mrs.  John  Hays  Hammond 


AN  ADDRESS  TO  THE  CENTURY  CLUB  OF  SAN 
FRANCISCO,  CAL.,  JANUARY  9,  1901 


D.  PAUL  ELDER  and  MORGAN  SHEPARD 
San  Francisco 


1901 


Printed  by   the  StanUy-tayUr   Comfany 


Statistics    of   the    Transvaal 


AREA:  119,139  square  miles.     (California,  156,000 

square  miles;  Nevada,  109,000  square  miles.) 
ELEVATION  :         Above  sea,  Johannesburg,  5,600  feet. 
POPULATION  :     State    Almanac   of    1898    gives   population 
as  follows : 

White 245»397 

Blacks 748,759 

Total 1,094,156 

This  makes  the  White  population  about  as 
large  as  that  of  San  Francisco  in  1880,  and 
about  one -sixth  as  large  as  the  present  popula- 
tion of  California. 

As  the  Uitlanders  outnumbered  the  Boers  in 
about  the  proportion  of  3  to  2,  the  above  total 
White  population  of  245,000  must  have 
consisted  of  (approximately) : 

Boers  in  whole  S.  A.  R...  100,000 

Uitlanders  in "       **      ...145,000 

Population  of  Johannesburg  {\%f)(i)'.    102,- 

315,  consisting  almost  wholly  of  Uitlanders. 

Pretoria  populatio  n:     10,000. 

MI NES  :  Employees  in  Mmes  (1898)  were  : 

Natives 88,000 

Whites 10,000 

Total  production  of  gold  to  Nov.^  ^gg : 
$390,000,000. 

Production  of  i8gg  was  at  rate  of  |ioo,ooo,- 
000  per  year  or  more  than  one  third  of  the 
world's  production  of  that  year.  More  than 
nine-tenths  of  this  came  from  the  Rand. 
Total  estimated  gold  capacity  of  Rand  (up  to 
limits  of  practical  working)  is  ^300,000,000, 
about  two-thirds  of  the  total  gold  now  in  the 
world. 
ANNUAL  REVENUE  OF  SOUTH  AFRICAN  REPUBLIC  : 

188 1 1      315,000 

(About  }io  per  bead  of  Boer  population) 

1885 889,000 

1888 4,422,000 

1892 6,279,000 

1895 14,618,000 

1899 20,439,000 

(About;^2io  per  head  of  Boer  population) 
[Annual  revenue  of  U.  S.  is  about  ^^9  per  head.  ] 


The  Boers  and  the  litlanders. 


[An  Address  to  the  Century  Club,  of  San 
Francisco,  Cal.,  January  9,  1901.] 

I  have  been  wondering,  ever  since  I 
received  your  kind  invitation  to  speak 
before  you,  just  which  side  of  the  big, 
complex  subject  of  South  Africa  I 
should  select  as  my  theme ;  and  I  have 
concluded  that  the  human  side  of  the 
subject  is  the  proper  one  to  choose.  Of 
the  international  and  political  points  at 
issue  you  have  already  heard  much, — 
and  probably  care  little; — for  indeed, 
treaties,  conventions,  and  questions  of 
suzerainty  do  not  strike  home  to  our 
hearts  as  do  the  questions  of  humanity 
and  human  rights;  and  it  is  of  these 
latter,  therefore,  that  I  propose  to  talk 
to-day.  I  shall  try  to  tell  you  some- 
thing of  the  Boers,  —  who  they  were 
and  how  they  came  into  the  Transvaal ; 
then  something  of  the  coming  in  of 
the  Uitlanders; — and  lastly  something 
about  Mr.  Kruger  s  government. 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

History  of  the  Boers. —To  under- 
stand the  Transvaal  Boer  of  to-day,  it 
is  necessary  to  remember  his  past ;  for, 
like  other  primitive  people,  he  shows 
with  distinctness  the  marks  of  his  mold. 
I  shall  begin,  therefore,  by  reminding 
you  of  some  of  the  salient  points  of  the 
Boer's  history. 

Cape  Town  was  founded  in  1652  by 
a  colony  of  Dutch  sailors  under  the 
leadership  of  a  small,  fiery  tempered, 
ship's  surgeon  named  Jan  Van  Riebeek. 
Their  object  was  to  make  of  this  point 
a  port  of  call  for  the  fleet  of  ships  be- 
longing to  the  Dutch  East  India  Co., 
on  their  way  to  and  from  the  East  In- 
dies. That  voyage  was  long,  covering 
many  months,  and  often  ships  would 
arrive  at  their  ports  with  half  of  their 
crew  dead  for  lack  of  vegetable  food 
and  good  water.  It  was  to  supply 
these  needs  that  Cape  Town  took  its 
first  form  in  a  fort  surrounded  by  vege- 
table gardens.  These  first  settlers,  who 
grew  garden  truck,  and  retired  into  the 
fortress  by  night  for  protection  from  the 
natives,  were  not  of  the  Argonaut  type, 
nor  of  pioneer  courage ;  they  were  of 
common  stock,  sea-faring  men  mostly, 
and  of  the  class  who  drift  out  into  new 
countries  more  from  lack  of  home  attach- 
ment than  from  a  spirit  of  adventure; 
possibly  also  they  were  tempted  by  the 
free  passage. 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders. 

Thirty-seven  years  later,  or  in  1689, 
the  first  settlers  were  joined  by  a  band 
of  some  300  French  Huguenots  who  had 
found  a  temporary  refuge  in  Holland  ; 
and  from  the  blend  of  the  two  peo- 
ple sprang  the  Boer.  In  the  process 
of  this  amalgamation,  it  was  the  sturdier 
Dutch  characteristics  which  survived — 
the  finer  fiber  of  the  French  Huguenots 
rapidly  disappearing.  Even  the  mother 
language  was  lost  to  them — only  traces 
of  it  now  remaining  in  family  names, 
such  as  Joubert,  De  Villiers,  Cronje  and 
others. 

The  colonists  thrived  and  increased 
in  numbers,  and  spread  from  the  orig- 
inal place  of  settlement  into  the  neigh- 
boring country ;  and  this  at  once  brought 
about  a  change  in  their  occupations. 
South  Africa  is  physically  different  from 
all  other  continents  of  the  world, — for 
it  is  all  edge  and  top.  Essentially  it  is 
a  vast  plateau,  or  table  land,  from  3,000 
to  6,000  feet  above  sea-level,  with  a 
mere  edging  of  lowland  along  the  South- 
ern and  Eastern  coasts.  On  the  top  of 
the  plateau  are  no  forests  or  rich  val- 
leys, such  as  are  found  throughout  other 
continents, — no  steady  rivers,  no  as- 
sured rainfall, — but  dry  and  treeless 
rolls  of  upland,  like  the  high  plains  of 
the  Rocky  Mountain  slopes,  stretching 
for  some  1,500  miles,  in  successive  ter- 
races, almost  to  the  Zambesi  River  and 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

the  tropics.  In  such  a  region  the  farm- 
ing which  had  been  the  support  of  the 
settlers  at  the  Cape  could  not  be  carried 
on.  So,  when  the  early  Colonists  had 
fully  occupied  the  narrow  strip  of  fertile 
land  along  the  coast,  and  moved  up 
into  the  drier  region  beyond,  they 
abandoned  farming  as  a  livelihood,  and 
took  to  cattle  grazing  instead, — as  the 
native  blacks  had  done  before  them. 
The  thin  pasturage  made  vast  stretches 
of  ground  necessary  for  the  support  of 
the  Boer's  herds ;  while  the  varying  rain 
seasons  of  the  different  regions  caused 
him  to  move  his  flock  from  place  to 
place, — following  the  freshening  of  the 
sparse  grass ;  and,  long  before  the  great 
Trek  into  the  Transvaal,  these  wander- 
ing cattle -men  had  earned  for  them- 
selves the  name  of  Trek  -  Boers,  from 
their  habit  of  trekking  or  wandering  from 
place  to  place.  From  all  this  resulted 
a  steady  moving  onward  of  the  Boers, — 
a  constant  enlargement  of  the  lands 
claimed  or  won  by  them.  It  was  a  lonely, 
hard  and  nomadic  life,  with  recurrent 
conflicts  with  the  hordes  of  natives 
whose  territory  they  were  invading  and 
whose  children  they  enslaved. 

The  Boers  soon  lost  all  touch  with 
the  mother  countries  from  which  their 
first  settlers  had  come,  and  lived  on 
through  their  quiet  days,  **uncoveted 
by  foreign  nations."      Until    1834   the 

6 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

history  of  the  colony  was  dull  and  un- 
eventful. There  were  occasional  forays 
against  the  natives  to  recover  looted 
cattle,  a  gradual  stretching  out  of  the 
settlers  further  afield  in  quest  of  richer 
pasturage  for  their  herds,  but  there  was 
no  spirit  of  the  explorer  in  their  homely 
breasts. 

In  the  great  political  game  of  the 
world  the  little  colony  was  merely  a 
pawn;  and  that  it  was  shifted  from 
Dutch  to  British  rule  three  times  within 
nineteen  years  affected  the  Boer  less 
acutely  than  did  his  local  troubles  with 
the  native  Hottentots  and  Bushmen. 

Living  in  isolation  on  his  lonely  farm 
or  pasture,  sole  master  of  his  family,  his 
slaves,  and  his  herds,  the  Boer  became 
more  and  more  an  autocrat,  recognizing 
no  laws  save  those  of  his  own  impulse. 
In  many  ways  he  grew  despotic  and 
degenerate. 

Of  any  control  or  government  he  has 
always  been  impatient.  History  has 
proven  this  to  be  the  dominating  fea- 
ture of  his  character.  Once  under  the 
Dutch  East  India  Company  the  people 
had  revolted;  and  with  the  emancipa- 
tion of  their  slaves  by  Great  Britain  in 
1834  the  Boers  again  revolted,  —  I 
must  admit  with  some  justice  on  their 
side;  for,  although  emancipation  was  un- 
doubtedly a  rightful  measure,  there  was 
much  mismanagement  in  the  payment 
7 


The  Boers  and  the  Uit landers, 

of  the  moneys  awarded  by  Great  Britain 
for  the  slaves  who  were  set  free.  The 
natural  disaffection  of  the  Boer  against 
any  governing  control  became  thus 
accentuated  to  a  degree  that  brought 
open  rupture,  and  the  so-called  **  Great 
Trek"  was  the  result.  Within  two  years 
from  6,000  to  10,000  people  seceded 
from  the  colony. 

Selling  in  haste  and  at  much  sacrifice 
their  homes,  and  possessions  not  easily 
transported,  they  gathered  together  their 
families  and  cattle  and  set  forth  in  little 
bands,  the  women  and  children  crowded 
into  cumbrous,  canvas-covered  wagons 
drawn  by  oxen.  With  scant  food  and 
small  supply  of  water,  surrounded  by 
hostile  tribes,  these  dogged  Vortrekkers 
pushed  along  through  wastes  of  arid 
land,  sweltering  under  a  brazen  sun  by 
day,  tented  at  night  by  a  strange  and 
silent  sky.  For  more  than  twenty  years 
they  wandered  on,  in  search  of  their 
land  of  Canaan,  leaving  solitary  graves 
to  mark  their  course;  for  privation,  fever 
and  native  assegais  claimed  a  heavy  toll. 

In  the  gloom  and  loneliness  of  their 
surroundings,  superstition  grew  and  ig- 
norance deepened.  In  ceaseless  fight 
against  wild  beasts  and  savages,  the 
courage  of  the  Trekkers  became  tinc- 
tured with  cunning.  Habits  of  cleanli- 
ness inherited  from  their  Dutch  fore- 
fathers, and   the   spirit  of  thrift  which 

8 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

came  from  their  French  ancestry,  were 
thrown  aside  as  useless  burdens  on  that 
long  and  painful  march. 

The  Transvaal  Boer  of  to-day  was 
evolved, — uncleanly,  improvident,  cruel 
to  the  weak,  crafty  with  the  strong,  igno- 
rant, superstitious,  strong  in  family  affec- 
tion, but  lacking  attachment  to  any  spe- 
cial locality.  Honesty  and  truthfulness 
towards  others  were  virtues  unknown 
to  him,  for  with  others  he  had  little  or  no 
dealings. 

In  the  district  now  known  as  the 
Orange  Free  State  a  part  of  the  caravan 
branched  off  for  Natal,  a  well- watered, 
fertile  land  to  the  East,  which  promised 
good  grazing. 

But  my  talk  to-day  is  of  the  Boers 
who  settled  across  the  Vaal  River,  and 
called  their  country  the  Transvaal.  They 
went  there  following  the  summer  rains, 
for  rain  in  South  Africa  is  the  life  giver 
as  it  is  in  our  own  Arizona  and  New 
Mexico.  They  fought  their  way  into 
the  Transvaal  through  opposing  native 
tribes.  They  made  their  clearings,  built 
their  houses  of  sun-dried  bricks,  smear- 
ing the  earthen  floors  with  beefs  blood 
to  harden  them,  planted  a  few  mealies 
and  a  little  tobacco  for  home  consump- 
tion, fenced  in  an  enclosure  to  protect 
their  cattle  at  night — and  sat  down  to 
idleness  and  contentment,  varied  only 
by  an  occasional  marauding  expedition 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

against  the  natives,  to  avenge,  or  to 
indulge  in  cattle  lifting.  Such  was  a 
true  picture  of  the  early  Transvaaler, 
and  it  is  equally  true  of  him  to-day. 

He  was  and  continues  to  be  impatient 
of  all  laws,  even  those  of  his  own  peo- 
ple. He  went  into  the  wilderness  not 
to  be  a  pioneer  of  any  government,  but 
to  secede  from  all  governments;  and 
he  clings  to  his  individual  independence. 
He  is  a  farmer  only  in  name.  There  is 
no  marketing  or  interchange  of  his  pro- 
duce. Once  in  three  or  four  months  the 
Boer  comes  in  to  the  nearest  town, — 
receives  the  sacrament,  does  his  crude 
bartering,  and  arranges  matches  for  his 
daughters, — and  goes  back  promptly  to 
his  herd  and  range.  He  co-operates 
with  his  fellows  only  in  wars  against 
natives  or  foreign  armies — when  immi- 
nent and  personal  danger  make  co- 
operation necessary.  He  lives  by  him- 
self— beyond   eye-shot  of  his  neighbor. 

These  were  the  people  among  whom 
came  the  Uitlanders. 


The  Incoming  of  the  Uitlanders.— The 

discovery  of  diamonds  in  1869  at 
what  is  now  Kimberly,  in  Griqualand 
West,  aroused  an  international  interest 
in  South  Africa.  From  a  political  sop 
exchanged  between  countries  whose  chief 
holdings   were   elsewhere,    it    suddenly 

10 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

bloomed  into  a  Land  of  Promise  for  the 
World's  treasure  seeker. 

In  1882  the  discovery  of  gold  in  the 
Leydenburg  district  of  the  Transvaal 
augmented  the  influx  of  foreigners,  or 
Uitlanders.  There  came  in  men  of  every 
nationality — English,  French,  Germans 
and  Americans. 

Few  women  came  with  the  first  waves 
of  immigration;  but  four  years  later, 
when  the  great  Gold  Reefs  of  the  Wit- 
Waters- Rand  had  been  opened  and  the 
tide  of  immigration  had  fairly  set  in, 
family-men  sent  back  home  for  their 
wives  and  children.  There  was  every 
inducement,  in  a  salubrious  climate  and 
wide  business  opportunities,  for  home- 
making  men  to  select  this  country  for  an 
abiding  place. 

The  Wit-Waters-Rand,  or  White 
Water  Range,  is  a  rocky  ridge  which 
runs  along  the  high  table-land  of  the 
Transvaal  for  a  distance  of  30  miles  or 
more — a  mother  lode  of  rich  gold  de- 
posits in  almost  continuous  series. 

How  important  the  Rand  was  as  a 
wealth  producing  region,  you  will  appre- 
ciate when  I  tell  you  that  in  1899  the 
Transvaal  was  producing  gold  at  the 
rate  of  100  millions  of  dollars  per  year, — 
more  than  one-third  of  the  total  product 
of  the  world;  and  that,  of  this  Transvaal 
product,  nine-tenths  or  more  was  from 
the  Rand. 
II 


The  Boers  and  the  Uttlanders, 

Johannesburg  grew  up  on  the  Rand 
as  a  necessary  trade  center  and  place  of 
assembly.  In  1896  it  was  a  city  of  about 
100,000  inhabitants, — as  large  as  Los 
Angeles  and  nearly  twice  as  large  as 
Oakland.  The  mines  march  right 
through  the  heart  of  the  town,  and 
there  is  scarcely  a  point  in  it  from  which 
the  tall  stack  of  some  mining  mill  is  not 
visible.  Those  of  us  who  lived  there, 
lived  with  our  pulses  pitched  to  the 
throb  of  the  mine  batteries. 

When  I  left  there,  six  months  after 
the  Jameson  Raid,  the  mines  were 
already  being  worked  at  great  depths — 
some  as  deep  as  2,000  feet.  The  further 
continuity  of  the  ore  reefs  had  been 
tested  by  deep  borings  far  ahead  of  the 
actual  workings,  and  the  supply  of  ore 
had  in  this  way  been  ascertained  to  be 
sufficient  to  last  for  many  years  to  come, 
even  at  the  tremendous  rate  of  produc- 
tion then  prevailing.  The  gold  in  the 
ground  and  still  unmined  was  esti- 
mated, within  the  limits  of  practical 
working,  to  be  3,000  millions  of  dollars, 
which  is  about  two-thirds  of  the  total 
amount  of  gold  in  use  to-day  in  the 
world.  There  was  work  ahead  for 
generations  of  miners.  You  will  see 
from  this  that  the  advent  of  the  U  it- 
landers  was  not  a  sudden  or  temporary 
scramble  for  treasures  strewn  upon  the 
ground. 

12 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

The  population  of  Johannesburg  in- 
cluded all  classes  and  conditions  of  men 
— a  few  capitalists,  many  mining  engin- 
eers, doctors  and  other  professional  men, 
and  a  large  number  of  clerks,  book-keep- 
ers, store-keepers,  carpenters,  masons, 
mine-foremen,  stable-men,  skilled  arti- 
zans,  and  the  usual  proportion  of  the 
vicious  and  disreputable. 

Between  the  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders 
there  was  no  ill  feeling — their  lines  of 
life  were  too  far  separated  for  friction. 
The  personal  relations  between  the  two 
were  perfectly  friendly;  and  the  working 
of  the  new  gold  deposits  was  arranged 
between  them  without  difficulty.  Mining 
claims  in  the  Transvaal  are  not  subject  to 
pre-emption  by  right  of  discovery  (like 
our  California  mines),  but  were  acquired 
wholly  by  purchase,  in  methods  fixed  by 
the  Boer  government.  The  Boer,  with 
his  inbred  indolence,  had  no  inclination 
to  work  the  mines  himself,  and,  indiffer- 
ent to  the  land  upon  which  he  lived,  was 
glad  to  sell  his  farm  to  the  Uitlander  as 
a  mining  claim,  and  ready  to  move  on  to 
other  pastures.  The  mining  district, 
therefore,  soon  became  populated  almost 
exclusively  by  the  Uitlanders  and  their 
native  laborers. 

With  the  great  influx  of  foreigners, 
the  springing  up  of  their  town,  the  de- 
velopment of  their  mines,  the  impor- 
tation of  machinery  and  coal,  and  the 
13 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

introduction  by  them  of  large  masses  of 
native  labor,  came  many  new  duties  to 
Mr.  Kruger  and  his  colleagues.  They 
were  confronted  with  the  problem  of 
devising  a  plan  of  government  ade- 
quate to  meet  these  new  and  untried 
conditions. 

The  existing  government  was  of  a 
crude  and  patriarchal  type,  utterly  un- 
suited  to  the  new  situation.  In  fact,  of 
government  up  to  that  time,  there  had 
been  practically  none.  The  state  was 
unable  to  collect  its  taxes, — for  the 
Boers  would  not  pay  them;  the  Treasury 
was  chronically  empty;  the  few  govern- 
ment officials  did  not  receive  their  sal- 
aries ;  —  the  pasturage  of  the  country 
was  scant  and  uncertain ;  and  the  Boer 
farmers  were  ever  ready  to  trek  off  to 
better  pastures  in  the  North  and  East 
and  to  leave  the  Transvaal  officials  to 
shift  for  themselves.  Neither  President 
Kruger  nor  his  Boers  had  the  education 
or  experience  which  would  enable  them 
to  work  out  the  questions  which  arose 
when  the  Uitlanders  came  in.  A  very 
small  percentage  of  the  Boers  could 
even  read  or  write. 

Technical  skill  to  formulate  and  run 
a  plan  of  government  was  needed ;  and, 
lacking  this  at  home,  Kruger  looked 
abroad  for  tools  that  he  might  hire,  and 
found  them  in  Holland.  You  can  readily 
understand  that  by  this  method  he  was 

14 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

not  likely  to  secure  men  of  patriotism, 
or  even  of  worthy  purpose.  These 
Placemen,  in  fact,  became  the  curse  of 
the  country.  Their  aim  has  ever  been 
their  own  personal  advancement  and  the 
maintenance  of  their  own  scheme  of 
government;  and  to  these  they  have 
sacrificed  the  welfare  of  the  country  they 
were  serving. 

The  problem  facing  Mr.  Kruger  and 
his  assistants  did  not  interest  the  mass 
of  the  Boers;  they  were  off  tending  their 
herds  of  cattle  on  their  new  pasture 
grounds.  Laws  and  government  did 
not  concern  them; — they  cared  little  for 
what  the  President  and  his  associates 
might  be  doing  with  the  purchasers  of 
the  gold  fields,  and  felt  small  interest  in 
the  huge  and  bewildering  mass  of  people 
and  supplies  which  were  coming  in. 
This  apathy  of  the  Burghers  made  it 
easier  for  the  few  who  were  engineering 
the  new  government  to  steer  in  the 
direction  which  would  bring  the  most 
pecuniary  benefit  to  themselves  and  their 
favorites, — and  Mr.  Kruger  and  his 
councillors  very  soon  yielded  to  the 
temptation  which  the  situation  brought. 
Where  gold  was  so  plenty,  the  temp- 
tation to  absorp  a  part  of  it  was  beyond 
their  power  of  resistance. 


15 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

Monopolies.  —  A  system  of  levying 
tribute  on  the  Uitlander  class  was  in- 
augurated in  the  very  beginning.  Ex- 
clusive concessions  were  granted  to  men 
having  close  but  secret  connection  with 
government  officials;  and  to  these  was 
given  control  of  the  principal  commod- 
ities of  importance  to  the  new  popula- 
tion. 

The  first  of  these  grants  was  the  Rail- 
road monopoly.  Remember  that  with 
the  growth  of  Johannesburg  everything 
for  its  building,  for  the  development  of 
its  mines  and  the  maintenance  of  its 
people,  had  to  be  imported.  The 
country  around  the  town  was  a  treeless 
one.  There  was  no  timber, —  no  grow- 
ing crops.  Fruit  and  vegetables  had  to 
be  brought  in  from  Natal, —  or  from 
somewhere  on  the  Coast.  The  place 
itself  produced  only  minerals.  Lumber 
for  building,  fodder  for  horses,  food  and 
clothing  for  the  inhabitants,  machinery 
and  dynamite  for  the  mines — everything 
had  to  be  brought  in  from  outside  the 
State.  It  at  once  became  evident  to  the 
favored  few  who  controlled  the  govern- 
ment that  heavy  tolls  might  be  levied  on 
the  transportation  of  all  this  material. 
There  was  no  difficulty  in  getting  the 
necessary  laws  passed.  The  Volksraad 
was  almost  under  orders  from  the  Presi- 
dent—  would  do  anything  that  was 
wanted ;    and     there    was    accordingly 

i6 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

passed  a  law  granting  to  the  Nether- 
lands Railway  Company  (a  syndicate  of 
Hollanders  in  close  touch  with  the 
Government)  the  exclusive  right  to 
build  and  maintain  railroads  in  the 
Transvaal. 

No  one  else  but  this  company  could 
build  a  railroad  in  any  part  of  the  State  ; 
and  the  Netherlands  Company,  with  the 
monopoly  wholly  in  its  hands,  was  able 
to  charge  what  rates  it  chose,  without 
tear  of  competition  or  control.  For  the 
sixty  miles  between  Johannesburg  and  the 
Vaal  River  (which  is  the  Southern  bor- 
der of  the  State)  rates  were  charged 
which  were  higher  even  than  would 
have  been  the  cost  of  transportation  by 
ox-carts.  The  general  railroad  rate  in 
the  Transvaal  was  twenty-four  cents  per 
ton  per  mile,  which  was,  I  am  told,  from 
ten  to  fifteen  times  the  rates  which  pre- 
vail in  the  United  States,  or  $14.40  a 
ton  between  Johannesburg  and  the  bor- 
der. You  can  imagine  how  such  rates 
as  these  added  to  the  cost  of  living  and 
tended  to  paralyze  the  industry  of  the 
Rand.  Hay  was  $65  per  ton ;  butter 
$1.75  a  pound. 

Having  once  yielded  to  the  tempter, 
the  government  found  it  easy  to  yield 
again.  And  there  was  plenty  of  tempta- 
tion to  drag  them  down  into  the  mire. 
Having  done  what  they  could  with  the 
great  question  of  transportation,  and 
17 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

fixed  that  so  as  to  secure  to  the  govern- 
ment favorites  all  that  that  system  could 
squeeze  out  of  the  newcomers,  they 
turned  their  attention  to  the  Dynamite 
question.  This  was  a  serious  question, 
at  least  to  the  miners.  Every  miner 
had  to  use  dynamite.  It  was  a  large 
factor  in  all  the  mining  work.  The  con- 
trol of  the  trade  in  it  would  mean  much 
to  the  parties  in  power.  Why  should 
we  not  profit  by  it,  said  the  government 
clique,  if  we  can  do  so  under  the  forms 
of  law?  They,  therefore,  did  again  what 
they  had  done  in  the  railroad  matter — 
they  created  a  monopoly  of  the  dyna- 
mite business,  granting  to  a  syndicate  of 
German  and  Holland  capitalists  (friends 
of  the  Placemen  who  were  running  the 
government)  the  exclusive  right  to  man- 
ufacture and  sell  dynamite  within  the 
State.  They  had,  in  decency,  to  give  a 
plausible  excuse  for  this,  and  accordingly 
said  that  their  action  was  intended  to 
protect  home  industry  and  promote  the 
manufacture  of  dynamite  within  the 
country;  but  for  years  after  the  monopoly 
was  created,  indeed  up  to  to-day,  none 
of  the  dynamite  sold  down  there  has 
been  manufactured  within  the  country. 
It  has  all  been  imported  in  bulk  from 
Germany  and  France  by  those  who 
held  the  monopoly;  for  they  found  it 
cheaper  to  import  dynamite  from  abroad 
than  to  erect  works  for  its  manufacture. 

i8 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

The  only  effect  of  the  grant  of  the  mo- 
nopoly was  that  those  who  held  it  could 
charge  what  they  pleased  for  their  ex- 
plosives, of  whatever  quality.  And  they 
used  their  opportunities  to  the  utmost. 
The  Uitlanders  paid  $3,000,000  more 
per  year  for  their  explosives  than  they 
could  otherwise  have  got  them  for. 
Kruger  and  other  officials  of  the  gov- 
ernment shared  in  the  profit  of  this,  as 
they  did  of  the  railroad  monopoly. 

Taxes. — There  were  other  monopolies 
besides  the  foregoing,  which  I  need  not 
dwell  on  here.  But  the  granting  of 
monopolies  was  not  the  only  means 
available  to  Kruger  &  Co.  for  extort- 
ing from  the  Uitlanders  a  share  of 
their  possessions.  There  was  also  the 
opportunity  of  collecting  taxes  in  the 
name  of  the  State.  Taxes  were  there- 
fore laid  on  everything — at  increasing 
rates.  In  1881  the  total  revenue  of  the 
government  had  been  $315,000.  In 
1898,  by  use  of  an  ingenious  scheme  of 
taxation,  the  revenues  had  risen  to  $20,- 
000,000.  California,  with  a  population 
of  one  and  a  half  millions,  has  a  revenue 
of  $6,000,000;  while  the  Transvaal,  with 
a  white^  population  of  250,000,  collected 
as  taxes  $20,000,000.     All  of  this,  or  at 


*  The  native  blacks  may  properly  be  omitted  here,— 
as  they  were  neither  cared  for  nor  taxed. 

19 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders. 

least  95  per  cent,  of  it,  came  from  the 
Uitlanders,  not  from  the  Burghers;  for 
Mr.  Kruger  was  careful  that  no  part  of  the 
burden  of  his  taxation  should  fall  upon 
the  Burghers  whose  arms  he  might  need 
to  keep  the  Uitlanders  in  subjection. 
Six  millions  of  our  $20,000,000  of  tax 
money  was  used  in  increasing  the  salary- 
list  of  the  government  officials,  a  list 
which  had  required  less  than  a  quarter 
of  a  million  dollars  twelve  years  before. 

And  what  did  we  get  in  return  for  our 
tribute.*^  None  of  the  things  we  had 
reason  to  demand.  We  were  not  even 
privileged  to  control  the  administration 
of  the  city  which  we  had  built,  and  in 
which  no  Boers  resided  excepting  the 
government  and  railroad  officials.  Drain- 
age, policing,  control  of  the  liquor  evil, 
schooling  for  our  children, — everything 
that  should  have  been  provided  to  make 
life  endurable  was  withheld  from  us. 

The  city  water  supply  was  under  the 
control  of  a  company  who  supplied  water 
impure  in  quality  and  scant  in  quantity. 
This  was  particularly  severe  on  the  poor 
who  were  unable  to  buy  mineral  wa- 
ters,— for  to  drink  the  town  water  was 
a  sure  cause  of  enteric  trouble.  Bitter 
complaint  was  made  to  the  government, 
and  an  English  and  American  company 
offered  to  bring  in  a  supply  of  pure  water 
for  less  expense, —  but  was  refused 
the  right.     The  original  water  company 

20 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders. 

had  been  granted  the  monopoly  by  the 
government. 

Another  cause  of  distress  was  the  un- 
sanitation  of  the  town ;  Johannesburg 
was  undrained.  We  had  beautiful  homes, 
but  the  ordinary  decencies  could  not  be 
obtained.  Garbage  was  thrown  into  the 
open  street,  and  a  bucket  system  pre- 
vailed for  private  use.  These  buckets 
belonged  to  no  particular  house,  were 
freely  interchanged,  and  caused  typhoid 
fever  and  other  contagious  diseases  to 
sweep  like  wild  fire  through  different  dis- 
tricts of  the  city.  Complaint  was  again 
made  to  the  government ;  but  the  bucket 
company  was  another  official  monopoly, 
and  matters  remained  as  they  were.  I  n 
1893  ^^  death  rate  of  Johannesburg 
was  59  in  1000.  At  this  rate  the  entire 
population  would  be  dead  in  16  years. 
This  is  appalling  when  you  recollect  that 
the  people  of  Johannesburg  were  mostly 
men  and  women  in  the  prime  of  life. 

Then  there  was  the  school  question^ 
which  sorely  tried  those  of  us  who  had 
children,  especially  the  less  well-to-do  of 
the  community.  $3 1 5,cxx)  was  set  apart 
by  the  government  for  the  support  of 
the  public  schools,  and  of  this  sum  we 
contributed  more  than  three-fourths. 
But  no  English  was  taught.  Our  chil- 
dren were  obliged  to  learn  their  history, 
arithmetic  and  geography  in  Dutch,  or 
do  without  schooling. 
21 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

The  illicit  sale  of  liquor  to  the  natives 
was  another  source  of  trouble,  and  of 
danger  as  well.  There  were  laws  pro- 
hibiting the  sale  of  liquor;  but  the 
favored  Hollanders  received  licenses 
from  the  government  and  were  permit- 
ted to  sell  their  stuff  in  spite  of  the  law. 
Frequent  and  fearful  accidents  were 
caused  by  the  intoxication  which  re- 
sulted. Practically  one-third  of  the  Kaf- 
fir boys  employed  at  the  mines  were,  all 
the  time,  incapacitated  from  work  by 
liquor;  and,  as  there  were  88,000  Kaffirs 
in  the  mines,  this  was  equivalent  to 
keeping  29,000  of  them  under  pay  in  a 
constant  state  of  intoxication, — involving 
an  expense  to  the  miners  of  about 
$5,000,000  per  year.  The  Boys  (as  all 
male  natives  are  called)  were  inflamed 
by  the  liquor  to  tribal  battles,  in  which 
heads  were  broken  and  bodies  dismem- 
bered; and  there  were  also  many  per- 
sonal outrages  committed  by  negroes, 
even  in  Johannesburg  itself.  Several  of 
such  cases  came  to  my  own  knowledge 
during  the  three  years  of  my  life  there. 
Inefficient  policing  of  the  town  made 
this  possible. 

Protests,  etc. —  It  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  the  active  community  of  Uit- 
landers submitted  to  these  extortions 
and  hardships  in  silence.  Complaints 
and  protests  from  them  to  the  govern- 

22 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders. 

ment  were  frequent — almost  constant. 
Delegation  after  delegation  was  sent  to 
Pretoria  to  lay  the  matter  before  the 
Executive  and  to  secure  reform,  but 
every  effort  was  futile.  The  officials 
were  unwilling  to  abandon  the  lucrative 
game  they  were  playing,  and  showed  an 
increasing  irritation  and  petulance,  not 
unnatural  under  the  circumstances,  as  the 
successive  delegations  touched  the  quick 
of  the  disease. 

By  his  plundering  of  the  Uitlanders, 
Krueger  was  naturally  driven  into  trying 
to  stifle  their  complaints;  and  laws  to 
accomplish  this  were  passed  by  his 
Volksraad  as  fast  as  he  desired  them. 
Free  speech  was  practically  prohibited, — 
and  a  law  passed  which  gave  to  Krueger 
the  power  of  suppressing  any  publication 
which  he  thought  opposed  to  good 
morals  or  good  order.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  this  power  was  exercised  only 
against  those  newspapers  which  com- 
plained of  Mr.  Krueger's  practices.  By 
the  Public  Meeting  Act,  it  was  left  dis- 
cretionary with  the  Boer  policemen  to 
suppress  assemblages  of  any  kind  at 
their  will.  By  another  law  (the  Aliens 
Expulsion  Act)  it  was  provided  that  any 
Uitlander  could  be  put  over  the  border 
at  the  will  of  the  President, — without 
the  right  of  hearing  in  any  court  of  jus- 
tice,— though  no  such  arbitrary  expul- 
sion could  be  exercised  in  the  case  of  an 
offending  Boer. 
23 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

The  corruption  which  began  at  the 
headquarters  of  the  Government  spread 
throughout  the  officials.  The  chiefs 
could  not  scrutinize  or  control  their 
subordinates,  when  all  were  playing  the 
same  unprincipled  game.  Personal 
profit  was  everywhere  the  sole  induce- 
ment to  official  action. 

And  it  was  not  the  English  immigrants, 
particularly,  by  whom  these  grievances 
were  felt,  or  to  whom  the  oppressions 
were  applied.  French,  Germans,  Eng- 
lish and  Americans — all  alike  were  Uit- 
landers — even  the  Boer  immigrant  from 
Cape  Colony.  Even  children  born  in 
the  country  had  not,  as  they  grew  up, 
the  rights  of  citizenship,  unless  they 
were  born  of  Burgher  parents,  but  would 
have  to  go  through  the  same  process  of 
naturalization  as  their  foreign  born  par- 
ents. Only  the  original  trekkers,  and 
those  who  had  joined  them  before  a  cer- 
tain date,  were  Burghers  and  could  vote. 
It  was  as  if  California  had  tried  to  limit 
its  government  to  the  Society  of  Pio- 
neers and  their  descendants. 

Franchise. —  From  all  this  it  became 
evident  to  the  Uitlanders  that,  if  they 
were  ever  to  be  set  free  from  the 
system  that  was  oppressing  them,  a 
vote  in  the  selection  of  the  government 
officials  was  essential ;  and  this  be- 
came, therefore,  their  main  and  central 

24 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

object.  Kruger  and  his  associates  were 
shrewd  enough,  however,  to  understand 
that  the  enfranchisement  of  the  Uit- 
landers, who  outnumbered  the  Boers, 
would  end  the  spoliation  that  was 
being  practised ;  and  they  were  as  cun- 
ning in  preventing  the  enfranchisement 
as  they  had  been  in  developing  their 
scheme  of  extortion.  It  may  interest 
you  to  hear  how  the  law  as  to  the  fran- 
chise was  shifted  by  Kruger  from  time 
to  time,  so  as  to  enable  him  to  "keep 
ahead  of  the  game."  Please  keep  in 
mind  the  fact  that  Kruger  became  Pres- 
ident in  1882,  and  has  remained  Presi- 
dent ever  since. 

Up  to  i88iy  residence  of  one  year 
qualified  any  settler  to  full  Burgher  priv- 
ileges, with  the  right  of  voting. 

In  1882,  when  the  first  gold  fields 
were  discovered,  five  years'  residence 
was  required  and  the  residence  had  to 
be  proved  by  the  Field  Cornet's  book ; 
and,  as  the  Field  Cornet  rarely  knew 
how  to  write  and  never  kept  a  book, 
this  proof  was  difficult  to  produce. 

In  i8go  a  new  franchise  law  was 
passed.  By  this  time  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  Uitlanders  who  had  come  in  with 
the  development  of  the  Rand  in  1886 
and  1887  had  been  nearly  long  enough 
in  the  country  to  have  the  qualifications 
which  were  required  by  the  law  of  1882. 
If  they  were  to  be  kept  from  voting,  a 
25 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

change  in  the  law  must  be  made.  Ac- 
cordingly, by  the  law  of  1890,  14  years 
of  residence  were  required.  The  appli- 
cant had  besides  to  be  at  least  forty 
years  old,  a  member  of  the  Protestant 
church,  and  an  owner  of  landed  prop- 
erty in  the  Transvaal. 

In  i8g4y  further  requirements  were 
added.  The  major  part  of  the  Burghers 
of  the  applicant's  ward  had  to  signify 
their  approval  in  writing.  The  personal 
good  will  of  the  President  and  Executive 
was  also  to  be  obtained.  Then,  all 
these  conditions  accepted,  the  would-be 
Burgher  was  called  upon  to  renounce 
his  allegiance  to  his  own  country  five 
years  before  he  could  be  enfranchised, 
and  to  float  for  these  five  years  between 
the  devil  and  the  deep  sea — a  man  with- 
out a  country. 

Each  of  these  changes  was  made  to 
apply  not  only  to  those  who  might  come 
into  the  country  in  the  future,  but  to 
those  who  had  come  in  before  and  who 
had  become,  by  past  residence,  nearly 
qualified  to  receive  the  franchise  under 
the  law  in  force  when  they  came  in. 
Each  change  was  designed  to  forestall 
applications  which  seemed  imminent  un- 
der the  existing  law. 

Having  thus  denied  the  Uitlanders 
the  redress  of  their  grievances  when 
asked  for  by  petition,  and  shut  them  off 
from  the  possibility  of  ending  the  op- 

26 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

pression  by  vote,  Kruger  had  next  to 
take  precautions  against  their  rising  in 
rebellion  against  this  tyranny.  He  had 
oppressed  them  beyond  human  endur- 
ance. He  had  cut  them  off  from  civil- 
ized methods  of  redress.  He  had  now 
to  keep  them  in  forcible  subjection. 

Accordingly,  to  keep  the  Uitlanders 
in  a  state  of  disarmament,  he  prohibited 
them  by  law  from  bearing  or  keeping 
arms,  for  any  purpose  whatsoever.  In 
the  United  States,  the  right  of  the  peo- 
ple to  bear  and  keep  arms  is  guaranteed 
to  them  by  the  Constitution,  as  the  ulti- 
mate safeguard  of  the  people  against  a 
military  tyranny.  Mr.  Kruger  prohibited 
this  right  to  the  people  of  his  country 
because  he  knew  his  rule  had  become  a 
tyranny,  and  that  recourse  to  arms  alone 
was  left  for  those  he  was  oppressing. 
He  built  forts  commanding  the  town  of 
Johannesburg;  and  he  supplemented  this 
by  an  official  distribution  of  arms  among 
the  Boers,  so  that  he  might  have  an 
efficient  constabulary  with  which  to 
check  any  violent  uprising.  And  to 
keep  the  Boer  constabulary  themselves 
content  and  obedient  to  his  call — while 
the  officials  were  reaping  their  golden 
harvest — their  taxes  were  made  nomi- 
nal, and  Mr.  Kruger  amused  them  with 
homely  parables. 

His  government,  in  other  words,  had 
become  an  armed  oligarchy. 
27 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

Summary. — I  hope  I  have  now  made 
it  clear  to  you  what  a  make-believe  Re- 
public this  of  Mr.  Kruger's  was.  I  do 
not  mean  that  there  was  at  first  in  Mr. 
Kruger's  mind,  or  in  anyone's  mind,  the 
full  system  of  oppression  which  ulti- 
mately developed.  Kruger  slipped  into 
that  by  degrees,  as  he  yielded  to  suc- 
cessive temptations ;  and  he  had  finally 
to  fight  hard  in  support  of  the  vicious 
system  he  had  created,  and  against  a 
community  which  at  first  had  been  his 
friends.  For  the  Uitlanders  had  not 
come  in  uninvited  by  him,  nor  unwel- 
comed  by  the  Boers.  In  1884,  when  in 
London,  Kruger  had  expressed  his  hope 
of  a  foreign  immigration,  with  his  prom- 
ise of  equal  treatment  for  all;  and  the 
Grondwet  (the  so-called  Constitution  of 
his  State)  in  Article  6,  declared  the 
State  to  be  "open  for  every  foreigner 
who  obeys  the  laws  of  the  Republic." 

And  the  foreigners  were  welcomed  by 
the  mass  of  the  Boers  as  well ;  for  their 
capital  brought  relief  to  an  impoverished 
treasury,  and  their  presence  brought 
protection  against  attacks  of  the  natives. 
For  the  incoming  of  the  Uitlanders  there 
was  welcome  enough.  It  was  only  after 
they  had  gone  in  there  that  a  machinery 
of  oppression  was  devised  against  them. 
And  it  was  not  the  Boers  that  did  this. 
It  was  Mr.  Kruger  and  his  coterie. 


28 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders, 

I  know  that  much  sympathy  with  the 
Boers  has  been  aroused  in  America,  and 
probably  amongst  you,  by  their  name 
of  **  South  African  Republic";  but  you 
probably  now  realize  how  little  of  a 
Republic  they  really  had.  They  had 
happened  on  a  catch  word,  when  they 
chose  the  name  of  their  State ;  and  they 
lost  the  last  traces  of  Republicanism 
when  their  President  joined  hands  with 
the  mercenary  officials  he  had  imported. 

There  was  no  equality — no  personal 
freedom.  There  was  heavy  taxation, 
but  no  representation.  The  laws  of  the 
land  were  on  a  sliding  scale,  and  were 
altered  from  time  to  time,  not  in  good 
faith,  but  to  sustain  the  game  which  the 
government  clique  was  playing.  There 
was  no  bill  of  rights,  no  Magna  Charta 
in  the  English  sense,  no  Constitution  in 
our  sense.  Their  so-called  Constitution 
(or  Grondwet)  was  as  unstable  as  any 
other  law  of  their  country,  and  was  al- 
tered, or  even  suspended,  by  a  mere 
majority  vote  of  their  Volksraad,  when- 
ever this  was  directed  by  Kruger  and 
his  colleagues."^ 


*  The  cases  of  Dr.  Leyds  and  Judge  Gregorowski 
serve  as  good  instances.  The  Grondwet  required  all 
officials  to  be  Burghers;  but  this  provision  was  sus- 
pended when  Kruger  desired  the  appointment  of 
Leyds  (a  Hollander)  as  Secretary  of  State,  and  again, 
when  he  imported  Judge  Gregorowski  from  the 
Orange  Free  State,  to  sit  in  trial  upon  the  Uitlander 
leaders. 

29 


The  Boers  and  the  Uitlanders. 

Ultimately  the  judges  of  their  courts 
(who  with  us  are  a  bulwark  to  protect 
the  people  from  intemperate  and  un- 
genuine  laws)  were  whipped  into  line, 
and,  when  they  ventured  to  declare  one 
of  Mr.  Kruger's  laws  unconstitutional, 
as  violating  the  fundamental  principles 
of  government,  the  Chief  Justice  was 
promptly  ejected  from  office,  and  a  new 
law  passed  making  all  the  judgments  of 
the  Court  subject  to  reversal  by  the 
Volksraad. 

His  government  violated  every  civil- 
ized principle — every  human  right.  In 
struggling  to  maintain  it,  he  was  fight- 
ing against  nature. 

An  upheaval,  a  revolution,  an  inva- 
sion, a  change  in  some  way,  was  in- 
evitable. The  structure  Kruger  had 
erected  was  bound  to  be  overthrown. 
In  his  stubbornness  he  seems  to  have 
determined  that,  when  it  fell,  his  coun- 
try should  fall  with  it. 


30 


SI'S' 

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